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Asia Stocks Meander Following Gains Last Week

LONDON (AP) â¿¿ Global stock markets drifted lower on Monday as some investors sought to lock in profits from last week's strong gains.

Major indexes surged last week after U.S. lawmakers passed a bill to avoid a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases that have come to be known as the "fiscal cliff." The deal, however, remains incomplete. Politicians will face another deadline in two months to agree on more spending cuts.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy keeps recovering, though only at a modest rate. On Friday, official figures showed employers added 155,000 jobs in December, roughly as expected. The good sign was that hiring held up during the tense fiscal negotiations in Washington. But the increase was not large enough to bring the unemployment rate down from 7.8 percent.

Having enjoyed a good couple of days, investors appeared ready to cash in.

"It just seems like markets are entering a consolidation phase after recent gains," Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG Markets in Melbourne, said in a market commentary.

The one bright spot was the banking sector, where stocks were up after global regulators eased new rules obliging lenders to set capital aside. The so-called Basel III rules are a set of new international standards to make sure banks don't fall back into the sort of trouble that caused the 2008 financial crash. On Sunday, the officials setting those rules delayed the date by which certain amounts of cash had to be readily available.